The Times, Dec 20, 1968; pg. 9; Issue 57439; col C
Copyright 1968, The Times
From Mr. A. J. L. Barnes
Sir, - It is tragic that a newspaper of the standing of The Times particularly by its headline "Beatty shown as falsifier of Jutland record" (December 14), but also by its failure to give any indication of the grounds on which Admiral Harper's allegations have been challenged, should appear to countenance the publication of a libel on a dead man.
Having given a good deal of study to this issue, in perparation for my forthcoming biography of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, I would like to confirm the present Lord Beatty's statement about the changes made to Harper's text, and in particular to the charts. Sir Julian Corbett when writing his account of Jutland was given both the Harper originals and the corrected version, and one of Harper's assistants was seconded to help him in his work. This is further evidence which hardly squares with any charge of falsifying history. It can be said at once that there are no substantial pieces of evidence about Jutland discovered by Harper that have been suppressed.
Study of the deletions ordered by Beatty shows conclusively that they have no bearing at all on the question of the damage inflicted on the German battle cruisers, Beatty's own dispositions, or, indeed, on the gunnery of his ships. Harper's allegations which you print cannot in these respects be justified, nor indeed are they borne out by a careful reading of the autobiographical memorandum to which these remarks form a preface. Without going into great detail it can be said that the deletions were largely factual or consequent on the printing in full of Jellicoe's dispatch and a record of all signals made during the battle (both of which were added to Harper's Record on Beatty's orders).
Beatty was perhaps tactless in one or two of his alterations, particularly in pointing out that the Fleet action was never "general", but I do not think that any motive to distort the truth can be detected in either the deletions or the minutes which he wrote to Harper on the subject. On two occasions where he was open to criticism, the draft preface to the Record which he suggested and a harmless deletion from his own dispatch, he did not persist in pressing his own point of view. Only in the modification that he made to that section of the Record dealing with the positional errors in Southampton's enemy reports, and the mutilation of his own 1645 signal to the Commander-in-Chief, can any ground be found for the arguments of those disposed to find fault with his actions; in my opinion it would then be found only by straining the evidence.
Harper's most serious charge concerns the alteration made to the track of the Battle Cruiser Fleet, as reconstructed by himself, for the period 1853-1905 on the evening of May 31, 1916. Harper concluded that Beatty's force made a 360 ° turn. Beatty contended that as a result of gyro failure when turning eight points to startboard his ships had made approximately a 16-point turn to starboard and had then turned back 16 points to port. A full examination of the evidence is not possible here, but it can be said that this was no afterthought on Beatty's part. The matter had been disputed in June and July, 1916, and the chart showing the two turns, on whose authenticity Harper throws doubt, was forwarded to Jellicoe on July 17. The evidence from Inflexible's track chart would seem to support Beatty; that from Princess Royal's, Harper.
But the question in this case is not whether Beatty was correct. That is a matter for legitimate debate. What is at stake is his motive for altering the Record. One annotation on a letter from Jellicoe from this earlier dispute, "this is not a matter of probability but of fact", as well as much other evidence suggests that his only concern was for historical accuracy as he saw it.
Yours faithfully,
JOHN BARNES
The London School of Economics and Political Science, Aldwych, W.C.2. Dec. 17.